Tremor Fantasma

De Leon brings a pop twist to the increasing Sephardic music scene. Don’t expect the passionate contemporary rootsy sounds of Mor Karbasi or Yasmin Levy, but rather a collection of songs with retro pop sensibility, with electric guitars, banjo, pop, mariachi trumpets, spaghetti western-style influences and occasionally reggae beats.

Tremor Fantasma is the group’s third album. For this project, DeLeon invited the international community of Sephardic folk music fans to put together a playlist of songs to could be reinterpreted by the band. The folk songs came from Spain, Greece and Turkey, and arrived to Mexico City, where Saks currently lives.

“Sephardic music has a small but enthusiastic fanbase all around the world,” says band leader, Dan Saks,” and I thought it would be great to involve our fans, and fans of the music in general, in this album.”

The album title comes from Saks’ exposure to an earthquake. “Shortly after I began working on this album, Mexico City was hit with a series of earthquakes — and then the local volcano Popocatépetl started acting up,” clarifies Saks. “I was experiencing phantom quakes in the studio and vivid volcanic dreams throughout the recording process. Being tuned into the instability of the very earth we walk on comes through to me when I listen to these recordings. This is our most organic and alive-sounding record yet.”

Author: Angel Romero

Angel Romero y Ruiz has been writing about world music and progressive music for many years. He founded the websites worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. Angel produced several specials for Metropolis (TVE) and co-produced “Musica NA”, a music show for Televisión Española (TVE) in Spain that featured an eclectic mix of world music, fusion, electronica, new age and contemporary classical music. Angel also produced and remastered world music and electronic music albums, compilations and boxed sets for Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Music of the World, Lektronic Soundscapes, and Mindchild Records. Angel is currently based in Durham, North Carolina.